John Christian
"THE DIAMOND THRESHER TEETH"
SURNAMES: PIERCE
John Christian, inventor
and manufacturer of “The Diamond Thresher Teeth,” has been a citizen of San Jose
nearly a third of a century. Having come to California in 1855, he located here
the following year and began learning the trade of making cylinder teeth for
threshing-machines in the shop of McKenzie, known as the San Jose Foundry.
After finishing the trade, he worked a year as a journeyman, and then opened
business on the site of his present manufactory, northeast corner of First and
William Streets. Mr. Christian is the inventor, patentee and maker of the
steel-laid cylinder teeth. The body of the tooth is constructed of the best
Norway iron and the wearing edge of fine cast steel, which gives it double the
lasting qualities of any other thresher teeth.
Mr. Christian has an actual
demonstration of the remarkable endurance of these teeth in a set on exhibition
in his shop which has threshed 70,000 sacks of grain of 140 pounds each. His
goods are sold extensively all over the Pacific Coast. His factory is equipped
with the finest machinery for the purpose, all of which, including the large
steam engine that furnishes the power, was made by Mr. Christian himself. The
factory has a capacity of two thousand teeth per day. Mr. Christian was born in
1840 on the Isle of Man; came to New York just after passing his fifteenth
birthday, and has fought the battle of life unaided since.
In 1864 he married
Miss Sarah L. Pierce. He has been a member of the I. O. O. F. For twenty years
and of the A. O. U. W. then years. He served eleven years in the California
State Militia; lay on his arms in the armory the night that President Lincoln was
assassinated.